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NETWORKING

Automated Troubleshooting with Pulover's Macro Creator

In this video, Tony Fortunato demonstrates how to use the free automation tool and script generator to streamline network troubleshooting.

Whenever I write or talk about network automation, networking pros will tell me they aren't programmers, which I totally understand and respect. They're most likely thinking of Perl, Python or other programming languages that aren't typical skills for network troubleshooting. However, there's a free tool that makes it easy to automate certain network troubleshooting tasks and doesn’t require any programming skills.

In this video, I show you how to use Pulover's Macro Creator to create a script, or a packet "bookmark" that can help during protocol analysis. A packet bookmark involves generating a specific type of data while performing packet captures, so you can go back and find that point in time easier. For example, I might type some data into a webpage, then ping my router, then submit my changes. Afterwards I can simply search or refer to the ping packets to orient myself within the trace. This is especially helpful when working with encrypted or streaming data.

There are many reasons why I enjoy using Pulover's Macro Creator, but here is my shortlist: It's a portable application; comes in both 64/32 bit versions; provides access to the script code so I can easily make changes; and supports mouse, keyboard, and image/pixel search.

When I troubleshoot, baseline or need a specific task to execute the same way every time, I turn to automation. This is incredibly helpful when performing application baselining since I prefer to have as much automation as possible. Regardless if you are a seasoned programmer or just getting into it, I would recommend giving Pulover's Macro Creator a try.

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